


All It Takes

by Elizabeth Watson-Holmes (edye327)



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Johnlock - Freeform, Johnlock Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-03-28
Updated: 2014-03-28
Packaged: 2018-01-17 09:09:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1381873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/edye327/pseuds/Elizabeth%20Watson-Holmes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Have you told her yet?" Sherlock asked quietly.</p><p>Paula dried off a coffee mug in silence for a moment, then laid it carefully down on the edge of the table and nodded pointedly towards John, who was frowning at a brunch menu. "Have you?" she said.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All It Takes

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by this post: http://theadventuresofholmesandwatson.tumblr.com/post/80766720768/an-episode-where-a-girl-who-works-at-barts-and
> 
> Leave comments/kudos/etc and let me know what you think :) wrote this in one sitting, so it may not be top notch, but it was fun anyway!

The case had dragged on for three days now. Sherlock was bored. When they reached the coffee shop, however, and it became blatantly apparent that the manager, Paula, was in love with Molly Hooper, Sherlock's interest was piqued.

"I'll need to take a look in the back room," he said, already opening the Employees Only door. He paused, then stuck his head out. "Molly? John?"

"Coming." John followed Sherlock in.

"I love your hair clip," said Molly, smiling warmly at Paula. "The flowers are really cute."

Sherlock snapped his fingers. "Molly. Focus."

"Just being friendly," she muttered. "Puts people at ease when you come barging in with that look of yours."

Sherlock did not deign to respond. He took one last look around, then swept out of the room. "Sufficient," he stated.

"That's it, then?" The manager looked startled.

"I have all the evidence I need. However, Molly works in the morgue and will need a more detailed description of the corpse."

Molly shot him a sharp look. "You've never asked me to -"

Still staring fixedly at Paula, Sherlock said sternly, "Molly."

"Um... alright. I suppose - okay." She moved next to the manager and pulled out a sheet of paper.

"What was that about?" John hissed when Sherlock came over to stand next to him.

"I want to observe something," Sherlock replied.

"Brilliant," John muttered good-naturedly.

"Keep yourself occupied. Memorize the menu, or go make small talk with someone. Not her, she's married,” he said hurriedly, grabbing John’s elbow when the doctor moved to approach an attractive young woman sipping coffee at a corner booth. “Do something else, perhaps. Oftentimes I recite the case identification numbers and fact cards from the Scotland Yard's homicide database. Particularly when Anderson’s talking."

"Yeah, yeah, I'll just do that," John said sarcastically.

Ignoring him, Sherlock steepled his fingers and eyed Paula shrewdly. Her behavior around Molly was fascinating. Pupils slightly dilated, head tilted at a forty-five degree angle towards Molly's - which was barely tilted fifteen degrees towards hers - and she was shifting her weight onto her right leg, the one closest to Molly. Her gaze was darting across Molly's face, rather than at the notes that Molly was jotting down. The observations racked up, indicating a high level of attraction.

"All set?" John asked, when Molly had finished and Paula had been forced to return to work. 

Molly nodded. "I think I've got everything. Paula’s really sweet, we've exchanged numbers and I think we might go to the cinema this Saturday, maybe I'll invite her along with me and Tom -"

"Don't," snapped Sherlock.

"What?"

He was already walking away, and John and Molly had to hurry to keep up with him. "Don't invite her along with you and Tom on your couple's..." He searched for the politically correct term.

"Date?" John offered.

"Yes, that. Don't invite her."

"Why?"

"I believe it's being called the 'third...'?"

"Wheel," said John helpfully.

"We're just friends," Molly said, bemused. "She can bring along a date too."

Relationships were decidedly not Sherlock's area of expertise, and why on earth he'd felt compelled to enter into this conversation in the first place was drastically beyond his understanding. He chose to say nothing, but remembered the longing expression in Paula’s eyes, and felt strangely unsettled, as if something, he wasn't sure what, had hit too close to home.

* * *

"Have you told her yet?" Sherlock asked quietly.

Paula dried off a coffee mug in silence for a moment, then laid it carefully down on the edge of the table and nodded pointedly towards John, who was frowning at a brunch menu. "Have you?" she said. Her voice was gentle, resigned, and held no threat, but those two words were enough to punch him squarely in the gut.

Sherlock shook his head and opened his mouth to voice the flurry of excuses frantically flying through his brain.

"Not easy, is it?" Paula counted a stack of coins and swept them expertly into the register. "You can't just go up and - and tell them, just like that."

"It would appear that I have underestimated you, Paula," Sherlock murmured. Either that or he did a poor job of hiding his feelings. He couldn't really tell, when people made insinuations, if they were making a joke or basing their assumptions off of John's behavior. It never occurred to him that he may be the one giving it away. 

"It was obvious," Paula replied, a trace of pity intermingling with empathy in her tone. "You've got a better chance with him than I've with Molly, I can tell you that right now."

"I believe this conversation is over," Sherlock said tersely, “and use the other spray. That one" - he gestured to the bottle of cleaning solution she'd just picked up - "is about ninety-seven percent water. Your employee, the daft one with the backwards cap, forgot to buy new supplies, panicked, and refilled it with his own brilliant concoction." He paused, squinting at the hard, semi-opaque plastic curved into Paula’s palm. "Traces of anti-bacterial hand soap, too. Peach scented."

She gazed at him a moment longer before grabbing a fresh dishrag and another spray bottle, just to be safe, and spritzing up the countertop.

"We're done," Sherlock said abruptly, sweeping out the front door. John and Molly trailed in his wake, exchanging confused looks.

"Excuse me, I thought this had to do with the case?"

"That? Oh, we resolved that ages ago." Sherlock scoffed. "Lestrade will have received the write-up by now."

"Skipping over the fact that he's going to be livid you strung him along, what was the point of traipsing down to a coffee shop in the middle of bloody nowhere at ten o'clock at night if you've already gotten the information you need?" John asked. He sounded exasperated, but in a fond way that made warmth bloom in Sherlock’s chest.

Speaking of which, Sherlock’s face was beginning to flush. _You've got a better chance with him than I've got with Molly._ His heart was racing. _You’ve got a chance with him._ More palpitations. Was he ill? How unpleasant.

"Sherlock?" Molly appeared, bobbing anxiously at his side. "Don't get me wrong, Paula’s lovely, but why would you want to come all the way here again just to...?"

"I needed further information," snapped Sherlock. "She provided it."

He shouldn’t be taking this out on Molly, so oblivious and naive and rather endearing at times, in an almost younger-sisterly manner, though he’d be the last to admit it. Instead, Sherlock pushed a hand into his pocket, closed his fingers around a note, and handed it to her.

"Get a cab," he said. The uncharacteristic softness in his voice elicited a double take from John, and a worried crease pressed its way across Molly's forehead.

"Um, I don't know if - are you sure?" she asked, faltering. "What about you and John?"

"Go," Sherlock insisted, feeling very tired all of a sudden. "Take a left, then two rights. You'll be at the center of the town."

"I -" She looked to John for guidance, but he was equally bewildered. "Er - alright. I'll see you tomorrow?"

"Yes, fine," said Sherlock, dismissing her with a careless wave of his hand. He turned to John.

"Gentlemanly of you as that was," said John annoyedly, "is there a particular _reason_ you didn't offer to hail us a taxi as well? I don't normally fancy trekking down the side of a country road for three hours when it's nearly eleven, you know. Could be a personal preference thing but I'm pretty sure -"

"Were you always this whiny? If so, I must have deleted it. Unwise, on my part. I'll save this episode for future reference."

John fell silent, and Sherlock continued all but rampaging down the street, his partner, as always, by his side.

* * *

It was an unfortunate turn of events which led Sherlock and John back to Paula’s cafe. A witness to a murder which Sherlock dismissed as "overtly obvious" and "disappointingly straightforward" (namely, there had been no etching of initials on the corpses or significant blood spatters or clues hidden in the pattern of the victim's phone case) happened to be the charge of one of Paula’s employees. And so it was that, nearly five months later, Sherlock returned to the coffee shop with John, this time sans Molly.

"...with whipped cream, please," a customer was saying; Paula nodded and scribbled down the order. "That'll be two twenty-five." She glanced up as the bloke rummaged in his pocket, and saw Sherlock. "Oh, actually," she told the man. "Julie’s going to finish off the order for you." Julie, a new barista, took over the cash register as Paula undid her apron and came to join the detective.

Sherlock got right down to business. "Avery Connovaro. Where is she?"

"Today's her day off."

"Phone number."

"'Fraid I can't just hand out that -" Sherlock shot her a withering look. "Yeah, okay." Paula rattled it off, then placed her hands on her hips and stood there, waiting for something.

Sherlock cocked an eyebrow. "Yes?"

"I'm just wondering if..." She looked meaningfully at John, who, accustomed to putting up with his partner's extended interrogations, was staring out the window and counting the cars as they drove by.

"No," Sherlock said fiercely. John turned, questioning.

"I haven't said anything."

"No, I'm saying 'no' to her." This he said in a very accusatory manner.

John frowned. "Er... what's she done?"

Sherlock and Paula held eye contact for an uncomfortably long time.

The doctor seemed torn between concern and exasperation. "Sherlock?"

"Nothing," the detective finally replied. "Shall we?"

They were both halfway to the door when Paula suddenly came out from behind the counter and grabbed hold of Sherlock's arm. "Wait," she said urgently. "A word?"

John appeared startled. And confused, which was his default anyway. "Sherlock, what the hell is going on - ?"

But Sherlock had already followed Paula into a corner of the shop. John sighed.

"Listen,” said the manager, “things didn't work out with Molly, but I really think... have you tried talking to him?"

Sherlock snorted derisively. "No. I don't 'talk' to people."

"You're talking to me right now."

"I don't quite know why, and believe I will regret such a decision the longer you speak."

"Fine. Regret all you want. Just know that all it takes -"

"Relationships suit you," Sherlock cut in. "Older woman?"

Paula turned crimson. "We met at my brother's office party. It's only five years,” she added defensively. “Anyway, I won't ask how you know. But listen," she lowered her voice, "I can tell you with absolute certainty that sometimes people don't make the first move 'cause they're scared. They think you don't feel the same."

"That's not how it is with John."

"I think that if you put that little genius mind of yours to work, you might realize you're wrong."

"I'm never wrong."

"Just tally up the things he's done and said for you, and the things he hasn't for other people."

"You know nothing of our... partnership."

"I can surmise."

Sherlock sneered and tried desperately not to think about John. John, who couldn't remember if his last girlfriend had a dog, but who counted the number of texts Sherlock had sent to Irene. John, who shot a man for him, who dropped everything and ditched dates the second Sherlock needed him, who risked his life with Moriarty at that goddamn pool, giving care only to Sherlock’s well being. _Sherlock, run!_ Sherlock shut his eyes and took a deep breath. He could not afford to let Paula get to him.

"All it takes is to walk over to him, right now, and tell him that you fancy him."

"Just like that. Oh, so easy," Sherlock snarled, more worked up about this than he cared to admit. _"Please._ If things of this nature were always that simple, everyone would be settling down into domestic bliss and there would be no crimes for me to solve."

"Bit of a blanket statement, that," Paula replied keenly. "I've got to get back to work, I've faffed around enough, but just think about it. He's so close, Sherlock. Walk over there and say his name and -"

"Right. I've 'faffed around' quite enough myself and I would be smart to tell my partner that it's time to leave before he decides he is entitled to a free pastry."

"I'm telling you. Walk over there and say his name. The rest will follow naturally."

Sherlock ignored her.

_It's time to leave._

_I fancy you._

Four-syllable utterances.

He couldn't, though. This wasn't nearly as simple as Paula made it out to be.

Was it?

_All it takes is to walk over to him._

Sherlock walked over to John. "John," he said.

**Author's Note:**

> ETA (3 years later): Planning a sequel chapter!


End file.
